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I ISSUED SEHI'WEESL^ t. m. grist's sons, publishers, i % <Jjaniilg jjeutsjajer: <J[or the promotion of the political, Social, Agricultural, and Commercial Interests of the people. ) " "fSwSfJoir1!?? ce!toAIICE' established 1855. YORKVILLE, S. C., FHIDAY, FEBRUARY Q6, 1904. NO. 17. ~ ????M? ? ? ? * * * * '! ? ! ?i ! ! I- ! +* + ! I IS he Ge || From It |4 By 3i Copyright. 1399, by Doubltday T*+ Copyright, 1902 4 e.ti 1' ! 4 !' i ! 4 -t 4 4 ! 4 4 4 4 44444H jl * * * * * * * * *. | * * * * i|. * * ? * I T ***** "chapter in. IIE street upon whicb the Palace hotel fronted formed the ESSjS south side of the square aud Ig2ij?j ran west to the edge of the town, where it turned to the south for a quarter of a mile or more, then bent to the west aguiu. Some distance from tills second turn there stood, I fronting close on the road, a large! brick house, the most pretentious' mansiou in Carlow couuty. And yet it was a homelike place, with its red brick walls embowered in masses of cool Virginia creeper and a comfortable veranda crossing the broad front, while half a hundred stalwart sentinels of elm and beech and poplar stood guard around it The front walk was bordered by geraniums and hollyhocks, and honeysuckle climbed the pillars of the porch. Behind the house there was a shady little orchard, and back of-the orchard an old fashioned, very fragrant rose garden, divided by a long grape arbor, extended to the shallow waters of a wandering creek, aud on the bank a rustic seat was placed beneatb the pycamores. From the first bend of the road, where it left the town and became (after some indecision) a country highway. called the pike, rather than a proud city boulevard, a pathway led through the fields to end at some pasture bars opposite the brick house. John Harkless was leaning on the I pasture bars. The stars were wan and the full moon shone over the fields. Meadows and wooaianas lay quiet anu motionless under the old, sweet mar- j vel of a June night In the wide monotony of the flat lands there sometimes comes a feeling that the whole earth is stretched out before one. Tonight it seemed to lie so, in the pathos of silent beauty, passive and still, yet breathing an antique message, sad, mysterious, reassuring. But there had come a divine melody adrift on the air. Through the open windows it floated. Indoors some one struck a peal of silver chords, like a harp touched by a lover, and a woman's voice was lifted. John Harkless leaned on the pasture bars and listened with upraised head and parted lips. "To thy chamber window roving, love hath led my feet." The Lord sent manna to the children of Israel In the wilderness. Harkless bad been five years in Plattville, and a woman's voice singing Schubert's "Serenade" came to him at last as he stood by the pasture bars of Jones' field and listened and rested his dazzled eyes on the big white face of the moon. How long had it been since he had heard a song or any discourse of music other than that furnished by the Plattville band? Not that he had no taste for a brass band. But music that he loved always gave him an ache or delight and the twinge of reminiscences of old gay days gone forever. Tonight his memory leaped to the last day of a June gone seven years to a morning when the little estuary waves twinkled in the bright sun about the boat in which he sat. the trim launch that brought a cheery party ashore *1?1 1 4? *1? lonH. irOLLI U1CU gcuuuuci IV luc lumuu >uuv> ing at Winter Harbor, far up on the Maine coast. Touigbt he saw the picture as plainly as if it were yesterday. No reminiscences had risen so keenly before his eyes for years. Pretty Mrs. Van Skuyt sitting beside him?pretty Mrs. Van Skuyt and her roses ? what had become of her? lie saw the crowd of friends waiting on the pier for their arrival, the dozen or so emblazoned classmates (it was in the time of brilliant flannels) who sent up a volley of college cheers in his honor. How plainly the dear old. young faces rose up before him tonight, the men from whose lives he had slipped! Dearest and jolliest of . the faces was that of Tom Meredith. | clubiuate, classmate, his closest friend, the thin, redheaded third baseman. He could see Tom's mouth opened at least a yard, it seemed, such was his frantic vociferousness. Again and again the cheers rang out. "Harkless! Harkless!" on the end of them. In those days everybody, particularly his classmates. thought he would be minister to England in a few years, and the orchestra, on. the casino uoreh was olaying 'The Cohi|uering Hero Comes"" fn his honor and at the behest of Tom Meredith, he knew. There were other pretty ladies bea'.l.ic M re V.iti SWnvt ill tile l.'lllllch Coat] from the yacht, but as they touched the pier, pretty girls or pretty women or jovial gentlemen, all were overlooked in the wild scramble the college men made for their hero. They haled him forth, set him 011 high, bore him on their shoulders, shouting "Skal to the Viking!" aud carried him up the wooded bluff to the casino. He hoard Mrs. Van Skuyt say: "Oh. we're used to it. We've put in at several other places where he had friends!" He remembered the wild progress they made for him up the slope that morning at Winter Harbor?how the people looked on and laughed and clapped their hands. But at the veranda edge he had noticed a little form disappearing around a corner of the building, a young girl running away as fast as she could. "See there." he said as the tribe set him down: "you have frightened the populace." And Tom Meredith had stopped shouting long enough to on swer: "It's my little cousin, overcome ;; H ? i hM"K' ! ! *? ? ? !' ! ! ?-I-1 ! <l< ! ntteman I 'if + wtana |i OOTH TA "RKIfiGTO/f !. by MeCturt. Vhittipj SOL Co. .|. 4. .3. .] .{ >"??> !"> f 1. .f.fr.fr .fr .|. .|i ,y 4. .> i< !. 4. -M- 4? A woman's voice singing Schubert's "Serenade" came to him. with emotion. She's Deeti counting the hours till you cauae?been heuring about you for a good while. She hasn't been able to talk or think of anything else. She's only fifteen, and the crucial moment is too much for her. The great Harkless has arrived, and she bus fled." But the present hour grew on him as he leaned on the pasture bars. It had been a reminiscent day with him. but suddenly his memories sped, and the voice that was singing Schubert's "Serenade" across the way touched him with the urgent personal appeal that a present beauty had always held for him. It was a soprano and without tremolo, yet came to his ear with a certain tremulous sweetness. It was soft and slender, but the listener knew It could be lifted with fullness and power if the singer would. It spoke only of the song, yet the listener thought of the singer. Under the moon thoughts run into dreams, and be dreamed that the owner of the voice, she who quoted "The Walrus and the Carpenter" on Fisbee's notes, was one to laugh with you and weep with you. yet her laughter would be tempered with sorrow and her tears with laughter. When the song was ended he struck the rail he leaned upon a sharp blow with his open hand. There swept over him a feeling that he had stood precisely where he stood now on such a night a thousand years ago; had heard that voice and that song and been moved by the voice and the song and the night just as he was moved now. He had long known himself for a sentimentallet He Inn! ill most iriven nn trvinir to cure himself. And be knew biuiself for n born lover. He bad always been in love with some one. In bis earlier youth bis affections bad been so constantly inconstant that be Unnlly came to settle with bis self respect by recogniziug in himself a tine constancy that worshiped one woman always. It was only the shifting image of her that charged. Somewhere (be dreamed, whimsically indulgent of the fancy, yet mocking himself for it) there was a girl whom he had never seen who waited till he should come. She was everything. I'ntil he found her he could not help adoring others who possessed little pieces and suggestions of her?her brilliancy, her courage, her short upper lip. "like a curled rose leaf." or her dear voice or her pure protile. He had uo recollection of any lady who had quite her eyes. He had never passed a lovely stranger on the street in the old days without a thrill of delight and warmth. If he never saw her again and the vision had only lasted for the time it takes a lady to cross the sidewalk from a shop door to a carriage he was always a little in love with her because she bore about her somewhere, as did every pretty girl he ever saw. a suggestion of the faraway divinity. One does not pass lovely strangers in the streets of Plattville. Miss Briscoe was pretty, but not at all in the way that Harkless dreamed. For five years the lover in him that had loved so often had been starved of all but dreams. Only at twilight and dusk in the summer. when strolling he caught sight of a woman's skirt far up the village 511't'L* l, 1121II UUIIIIK'U 111 liic uiu nuvoo under the cathedral arch of meeting branches, this romancer of petticoats could sigh a true lover's sigh and. if he kept enough distance between, fly a yearning fancy that his lady wandered thei e. Ever since Ills university days the image of lier had been growing more and more distinct. He had t-ompletely settled his mind as to her appearance and her voice. She was tall, almost too tall, he was sure of that: and out of his consciousness there had grown a sweet and vivacious young face that he knew was hers. Iler hair was light brown, with gold lusters (he reveled in the gold lusters on the proper theory that when your fancy is painting a picture you may as well go in for the whole thing and make it sumptuous), and her eyes were gray. They were very earnest, and yet they sparkled and Itim AAmnontnnohlv nnil luu^uru iv villi vuuj^iuiivmmmv, ....v. sometimes lie smiled back upon her. The Undine danced before him through the lonely years, on fair nights in his walks and came to sit by his fire on winter evenings when he stared alone at the embers. And tonight. here in Plnttvllle. he heard a voice he had waited for long, one that bis fickle memory told him he had never heard before. But, listening, he knew better?he had henrd It long ago, though when and bow he did not know, as rich and true and ineffably tender a? now. He threw a sop to his common Rense. "Miss Sherwood Is a little thing" (the image was so surely talli. "with a bumpy forehead and spectacles." he said to himself, "or else a provincial young lady with big eyes to pose at you." Then he felt the ridiculousness of looking after his common sense on a moonlight night In June; also, he knew that he lied. The song had ceased, but the muslciar ingered, and the keys were touched to plaintive harmonies new to him. He aud come to Plaltville before CavaIieria Kusticnna" wou the prize nt Rome, and now, entranced, he heard the intermezzo" for the flrst time. Listening to this, lie feared to move lest he should wake from a summer night's dream. A mgged little shadow flitted down the path behind him. and from a solitary upple tree standing like a lonely ghost in the middle of the held came the "Woo!" of a screech owl twice. It was answered?twice?from a clump of elder hushes that grew in u fence corner hfty yards west of the pasture bars. Then the hurrel of a squirrel ritte issued, lifted out of the white elder blossoms. and lay along the fence. The music In the house across the way ceased. and Harkless saw two white dresses come out through the long parlor windows on to the veranda. "It will be cooler out here," came the voice of the singer clearly through the quiet. "What a night!" John vaulted the bars and started to cross the road. They saw him from the veranda, und Miss Briscoe called to him in welcome. As his tall figure stood out plainly In the bright light against the white dust a streak of tire leaped from the elder blossoms, and there rang out the sharp report of a rifie. There were two screams from the veranda. One white figure ran into the house. The other, a little one with a gauzy wrap streaming behind, came flying out into the moonlight straight to Ilarkless. There was a second report The rifle shot was answered by a revolver. William Todd had risen up, apparently from nowhere, and, kneeling by the pasture bars, fired at the flash of the rifle. "Jump fer the shadder, Mr. Harkless!" he shouted. "He's In them elders. Fer God's sake, come back!" Empty handed as he was, the editor dashed for the treacherous elder bush as fast as his long legs could carry him, but before be had taken six strides a hand clutched his sleeve and a girl's voice quavered from close behind him: "Don't run like that, Mr. Hark less! 1 can't keep up." He wheeled about and confronted a vision, a dainty little figure about five feet high, a flushed and lovely face, hair and draperies disarranged and flying. He stamped his foot with rage. "Get back in the house!" he cried. "You mustn't go!" she panted. "It's the only way to stop you." ?"Go back to the house!" he shouted savagely. "Will you come?" "Fer God's sake," cried William Todd, "come back! Keep out of the road!" He was emptying his revolver at the clump of bushes, the uproar of his firing blasting the night. Some one screamed from the house: "Helen, Helen!" John seized the girl's wrists. Her gray eyes flashed into his defiantly. "Will you go?" he roared. "No!" He dropped her wrists, caught her up in his arms as if she had been a kitten and leaped into the shadow of the trees that leaned over the road from the yard. The rifle rang out again, and the little ball whistled venomously overhead. Harkless ran along the fence and turned in at the gate. A loose strand of the girl's hair blew across his cheek, and in the moon her head shone with gold. She had light The rifle rang out again. brown hair und gray eyes and a short upper lip like a curled rose leaf. He set her down on the veranda steps. Both of them laughed wildly. "But you came with me," she gasped triumphantly. "I always thought you were tall," he answered, and there was afterward a time when he had to agree that this was a somewhat vague reply. TO BR CONTINUED. X*:' There are nearly 500 Christian churches in Japan and over 1.000 missionaries. x<:' One million persons in the United States own railway stock or bonds; 80 per cent of the holdings in American railroads is now held in the United States. U;' The American is never called a foreigner by his English kin. Neither the Royal Academy nor the Inns of Court exclude Americans under the rules which disqualify foreigners. piscfllanrous steading. FIRST STEAM BATTLESHIP. It Was intended to Shoot Red Hot Balls, and Squirt Hot Water. Even in a day of war and rumors of wars; with articles upon the relative strength of navies as common as stock quotations or weather reports, it is seldom recalled that the first steam battleship the world ever saw was built by an American for America. The story of the Demologos is an all ^nromHon InnHonf lr? nfll'fll il n - nals, yet she was the wonder of her day and her career, before her mysterious and tragic passing, quite picturesque enough to warrant the retelling. Planned by Robert Fulton, built by order of James Madison, the Demologos appears In history In 1814. Those were days when the good folk of the towns along the Atlantic seaboard walked in fear of attack from English ships and slept gallantly and well at sea, but the coast lay unprotected. President Madison and his advisers at Washington were quite as much concerned over this as the fishermen of Maine or Delaware?and then came ' Fulton with his proposal of a "floating battery." The strange little craft of his suggestion corresponds most nearly per- 1 haps to what we of today might call 1 an unprotected gunboat for coast and J harbor service, but she had "freak" features. In addition to the boilers that were to supply steam for the first 1 time to a fighting ship she was to be fiited with furnaces in which her shot RUSSIA'S MINISTER OF WAR. | The head of the czar's army is a veteran soldier and a master of the art of GENERAL KDKOPATKIJf. 1 war. He lias served tlilrty-flve yean J la the army and commands about 5,400,000 men In time of hostilities. I might be heated before firing. In addition to her 26 thlrty-two-pounders I she was to carry four guns, two for- 1 ward and two aft, which it was plan- ! ned should be hung over bow or stern, 1 as the case might be, with the Idea of ( discharging heavy shot Into the side of an enemy well below the water line. She was to be fitted with pumps and ( pipes through which large quantities of water might be spouted upon the decks and into the ports of her adversary. "She will be the most formid- , able fighting ship ever constructed," j wrote Mr. Fulton In conclusion. The scoffers laughed and the objec- , tors argued, but James Madison ap- ] proved and worked to such good pur- , pose than on March 14,1814, the houses , of congress appropriated $220,000 to build the craft. Fulton was named en gineer, and before June had passed the j keel had been laid In the New York , yards of Adam & Noah Brown. On UCl. ZS, sne was luuncneu, me iw-us of a national celebration, with thousands gathered along the river fronts and upon the shipping that filled New York bay to cheer, not the "Fulton the ' First," as the president had suggested the vessel be christened, but the "Demologos," or "Defender of the People," a name chosen by the designer himself, who turned to the classics as well as to the elements for his Inspirations. She was a mighty craft. The boiler over which the doubters shook their heads in fear was 22 feet long, by 12 wide and 8 deep. Her 2,475 tons were to be driven by a water wheel 16 feet in diameter. She was 156 feet over all, 56 fegt beam and her greatest depth was 20 feet. This is how the commission intrusted by President Madison with her construction described the Demologos: "She is a vessel resting upon two keels, separated from end to end by a canal 15 feet wide and 66 feet long. One section contains the caldrons of copper to prepare her steam. The vast cylih- i der or iron, wun us piston, levers ana ; wheels, occupies the other. The great water-wheel revolves in the space be tween. She is propelled by her en- I glnery alone. .? "The main, or gun, deck supports < her armament, and Is protected by a 1 bulwark four feet ten irn nes thick of 1 solid timber. This is pierced by port holes to enable her thirty-two-pound- s ers to fire red-hot shot: her upper, or s spar deck is plain. " I Small wonder that England was I terrified! One of the London journals I whose agent in New York had gath- i ered his information through many 1 devious channels gave this account of I the Demologos under the line "Terror 1 of the Seas." "Length on deck, 300 feet; breadth, i 200 feet: thickness of stdes, 13 feet, of i alternate oak plank and cork wood; i carries 42 guns, four of which are one- ' hundred-pounders, the quarter deck i and forecastle guns being forty-four- i pounders. Further to annoy an ene- 1 my attempting to board her, she can t discharge 100 gallons of boiling water 1 a minute, and by mechanism brandish 300 cutlasses with the utmost regular- l ity over her gunwales; work also on an equal number of iron pikes of great t PREMIER KATSURA OF JAPAN. Count Kntsura is Japan's premie and minister of the interior. Soldie as well as statesman, he received hi GENERAL COUNT TABO KATSURA. military education at a German wa college and is a field marshal in Ja pan s army. length, dashing them from her side with prodigious force and wlthdrawin them every quarter of a minute." But this marvelous and dreaded ves sel never faced an English foe. Sh made her trial trips, three of them, i the summer of 1815, establishing 'record" of 53 miles in eight hour without her armament, and of five an one half miles an hour when full fitted. And then?Just as she migh have cut for herself a place in historj with her red-hot shot and boiling wate and "submarine" guns, peace wit England was declared! The good Demologos was never pu Into commission. What had a countr at peace with all the world to do with s formidable a craft? She is completec they said at Washington, and she ca; be got ready for service at short no tice. Send her over to the new nav yard at Brooklyn. And so the "terror o the seas" crossed the bay and steam ?d up the East river, and was anchore ju tne rial mat lay aureasi ui mc oia tion in those days, when river and har t?or improvement committees wer things not yet imagined. And ther tor 14 years she watched the changini reasons, her protected wheel, unoilec asleep in its well, her water unboile and her shot unheated, yet not wholl useless, for she was the receiving shif The end came on a June evening ii L829, came suddenly, mysteriouslj tragically. There were visitors aboarc' jxamining perhaps those four famou "submarine" guns of which sucl mighty things had been expected, whei there came an explosion?arid' th Demologos lay a ruined and blackene wreck, with 25 dead upon the deck that had never before been staine with blood. This much the official re ports tell, though they throw no ligh pn the cause of the catastrophe. An 30 closed in bloodshed the peacefc career of the world's first steam bat tleship.?New York Express. WEIRD COLD WEATHER STORY. Strange Things Said to Have Happene When Temperature Was 35 Belov Zero. Oscar Wilte of Le Sueur, Minn., me with a most remarkable accident thi morning that very nearly cost him hi life. With his rifle in hand he was at tempting to get within range of a ca ie desired to shoot, when the anima ran up into the framework supportini the water tank. Standing directly beneath the eai Wilte shot straight up at it, carelessl; forgetting the fact that the tank wa A'ithin range. The bullet killed the cat and piercei EX-PREMIER ITO. Marquis Ito. four times premier ol Japan, is oue of Japan's greates MARQUIS niRORUMI ITO. statesmen. He has done as much a: any other man to modernize his coun try. he bottom of the tank, and in an in dant the water, gushing out. surround ?d Mr. Wilte with a complete showe jath in a temperature of 35 degree aelow zero. Instantly his overshoes froze to th stone foundation on which he wa standing, and stooping to unbuckl ihem, he was chained by the spra> freezing in the terrible cold as fast a it fell into a helpless statue of ic? stiff and immovable as a stone. Onl; jy his stooping posture, which kept hi face free from the ice, was he savei from suffocation. Soon the flow of the water was stop ped by the sediment in the tank flow ng Into the bullet hole, and a littl *on of Mr. Wilte, who had seen th tvhole affair, ran for assistance. I ,vas necessary to loosen the unfortu late man's feet with chisels, and whei le had been carried into the house b: hree strong1 men the ice had to b jroken from him with clubs. He was badly frightened by the ex jerience. but otherwise unharmed. The body of the cat was found frozei o his back.?Pioneer-Press. SEOUL?STRIFE CENTRE. r r Strange Oriental City Scene of Far g Eastern Controversy. Seoul, the capital of Cho-sen, is built amid a network of hills, eighteen miles , from the sea. It is an ancient, walled city, fortified in the strongest way by smells that would drive any but an Asiatic army forthwith into the ocean. It is poor in appearance, but rich in fleas. On autumn nights tigers frequently contest the right of way with belated pedestrians, and this is the chief reason why one has the entire street to oneself in a moonlight stroll after 8 o'clock. I Metaphorically, one can scarcely see the town for the bald, bulbous and bullet-headed Buddhist priests, who fatten on the superstition of the populace and lead licentious lives In the adjacent monasteries. Barring an occasional court function, marked by street processions, Seoul is triumphantly devoid of sights Interesting to a traveller. ,. The streets lack entirely those plc. turesque characteristics of a Chinese or Japanese thoroughfare, and a vista _ across the Korean housetops Is one of s appalling monotony. One seeks In vain g for attractive souvenirs. In the small shops of Seoul Japanese beer, matches, . cigarettes and cheap crockery form the e chief stock in trade, while long-stemn med Korean pipes and metal-banded a Korean knives are offered in the more s pretentious shops. d Here, likewise, can be had the realy iy unique Korean fans, made of silk it or paper, finished in oil and covered r> with curious native designs. These r fans are dipped in water before they h are used and the little breeze produced by them is astonishingly cool, it The wall surrounding Seoul, from y which kites are ever flying, is but a o ' A BRAINY JAPANESE. n Baron Koinura. Japan's shrewd minuter of furelg 11 affairs. is a graduate " , BARON JUTARO KOMURA. v of Harvard, a lawyer and an experienct pd diplomat. A few years ago lie wa? s Japanese minister to t!:e United States. s pocket edition of the great Chinese t wall that leads down to the sea at 2 Shanhaikwan. 's Piercing this Korean copy are the city gates?picturesque passageways? t which are promptly and Irrevocably y closed with the setting of the sun. s The west gate will be entered by the tourist on reaching the capital from j Chemulpo, and should he come outside of this but a minute after the sun has disappeared behind the horizon, and the "big bell" has boomed its mourn^ ful warning note, he is elected to camp * in the open until Phoebus has cycled round the world on the equatorial path. If he reach the gate five minutes before it closes on Its groaning hinges he will witness a sight that will almost repay him for the toilsome trip up from the coast. COL. WARE'S HISTORIC RIFLE. Responsible For the Death of Major Ferguson at King's Mountain. Commissioner Eugene F. Ware of the pension bureau has recently come Into possession of an old flint lock rifle that saw service In the revolutionary war. He has placed the rifle in a conspicuous place In his office at the pension bureau, with a card telling where it came from and to whom it belonged. The weapon was the property of 3 Darling Jones, who was born in 1764. - At the age of sixteen years he entered the Continental army and served for - nine months, part of which time he - was with Col. Shelby's North Carolina - regiment and part of the time with r Col. John Sevier's East Tennessee regs iment. He was present at the battle "' "''O XTrmntnln nnd it is claimed e shot and killed Major Ferguson, the s British commander, with the rifle now e in the pension office. r. The battle of King's Mountain was s the turning point in the war in the s. south, and the death of Major Ferguy son, it is claimed, was the turning s point in the battle, so, it may be d said, the old rifle was largely instrumental in bringing about the independ ence of the American colonies. Darling Jones named his gun "Sweet e Lips," it being the custom in those e days to give names to rifles. He died t in 1S40 at Jonesboro, Tenn., which he - had made his home ever since the a Revolutionary war. He had seven y sons, three of whom were in the Union e army in the civil war. He drew a pension from the government up to the - time of his death, and his wife, who died only two years ago, also drew a n pension. The rifle was given by Jones to his son-in-law, William Duncan, who, in turn, gave it to his/ friend, Frank Moncastle, son of Judge Moncastle of Tennessee. The rifle was in the keeping of the Moncastle family for fifty years. Gen. Wilder of Tennessee obtained it and presented it to Commissioner Ware.?Washington Star. LINCOLN REBELLED. An Occasion When Stanton Did Not Get His Papers Signed. Robert Lincoln when minister to' England told a friend an incident of his childhood which was deeply impressed upon his memory, so illustrative was it of his father's character. He was with his father In his cabinet one morning during the early years of the war when Secretary Stanton was announced. Scarcely replying to the courteous greeting or the president, Mr. Stanton walked directly up to the desk where Mr. Lincoln was sitting and said, "Mr. President, I have come for the papers that I brought you yesterday to be signed." "Well," said the president, with an expression in his face something like that of a convicted schoolboy, "the truth is, Stanton, they are not ready." "Well, then, those you had the day before." 'They are not ready either," was the answer with a somewhat quizzical look. "But you have had some of them for a whole week, and all I ask you to do is to put your name to them. Come, do it now! The whole batch will not take half an hour. I will wait while you sign. It is only a trifle I am asking, and it is not like you to hinder our work in this way." "A trifle!" echoed Mr. Lincoln, with a deep gravity settling over his careworn countenance. "Do you know what these papers are?" "Of course I do,' answered the secretary. "They are death warrants." "And you call signing a death warrant a trifle? Look here!" And he drew out from under his desk a basket overflowing with papers. "Here are , the papers you have brought me during the last week and that you have been urging me to sign, and every one of them will condemn a man to death If I put my name to it. How can I sign when I know so well what will be the result?" "You must sign, Mr. President; you must sign them. You are clogging the wheels of government. We have been at a standstill for a week because you have picked out every death warrant from the papers I have brought you. No wonder they have accumulated. But now we cannot wait any longer. We must have those papers, and you must sign them." And, seizing a pen-' from the rack, he dropped it in the Ink. Back"* and forth,' tfp~an<r downthe? room, strode the tall form, as was his wont when in perplexity. Suddenly his face cleared, and he approached the hearth, where there was a glowing coal of Are. Taking up the poker, he stirred up a bright blaze. Then, almost running across the room, he picked up the basket of death warrants and tossed them all on the coals. A tongue of fire seized them, and a puff of wind blew them up the chimney. "There, there; good riddance!" he muttered as he saw the ashes disappear. Then he turned to Mr. Stanton, who stood aghast and speechless for ~ ^ Innlr aalri* uiil'c, anu nuu a utft tv,tvi.t>ie ?vwm "I couldn't help It, Stanton; I really couldn't, and I couldn't sign them. It is too beautiful a day to send so many souls Into eternity. I don't believe the wheels of government will be blocked. Come, now, let us take a walk down the avenue."?Youth's Companion. ILLUSTRIOUS TURNCOATS. Many Men of Prominence Who Have Changed Their Jackets. "Times change and we change with them," Is a Latin maxim that finds its best illustration in the political career of great men. Napoleon began a revolutionist, the protege of Robespierre, and ended an emperor; Caesar began a patrician and ended a plebeian. History is full of such changes. In our own country there are some notable instances. Andrew Jackson started a radical states rights man and wound up by threatening to hang Calhoun for his nullification doctrine. Charles Francis Adams, abolition candidate for president in 1848, and minister to England under Lincoln's administration, died a Democrat. Oeorge W. Julian, abolition candidate for vice president in 1852, died a Democrat office-holder, under Cleveland. Charles Sumner, the first abolition senator from Massachusetts, and Lyman Trumbull, the first anti-slavery ?enator from Illinois, both voted against Grant. Horace Greeley ended up as a Democratic candidate for president. Dana by whose order? Miles put irons on ? Jefferson Davis, supported Tilden. Boutwell, Grant's secretary of the treasury, left the Republican party, and Benjamin Harrison, at the time of his death, was not in sympathy with it. Ben Butler, who refused a place on the ticket with Lincoln, was afterwards elected governor of Massachusetts by the Democrats. Governor Hoadley of Ohio, landed, as a Democrat, in the governor's chair two years after quitting the Republican party. Chief Justice Chase, the first Republicr.a senator from Ohio, died a Democrat. We mention these illustrious "turncoats" for the encouragement of any one that contemplates a change of political base.?Webster's Weekly. &V A stone with a remarkable history Is kept at the British naval offices in Portsmouth. In the '50s it saved a vessel of the queen's navy. The frigate Pique ran ashore on the Japanese coast, but it was, refloated in what was thought to be an undamaged condition. It proceeded to Portsmouth and was docked, when it was found that the stone had imbedded itself firmly In the planks of the ship's bottom. The stone prevented leakage, and had it dropped from its position during the homeward run there is little doubt that the Pique would have been lost.